A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report discusses the definitions of homelessness used by targeted federal homeless programs and federal efforts to end homelessness. In addition, the report describes the current federal programs that provide targeted assistance to homeless individuals and families (other federal programs may provide assistance to homeless individuals but are not specifically designed to assist homeless persons).

This report describes various sources of Intelligence Community (IC) whistleblower protections. Generally speaking, whistleblowers are those who expose misconduct (e.g., fraud, abuse, or illegal activity) within an organization. In the context of the IC, whistleblowers are generally employees or contractors of federal intelligence agencies who bring to light information on agency wrongdoings.

This report summarizes the background and functions of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).

This report discusses funding for the Health Centers Program and the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) which provide medical care to underserved populations through health centers and provide scholarships and loan repayment to physicians in exchange for working in underserved areas for at least two years through the NHSC.

This report outlines the legislative process in Congress of Homeland Security appropriations for fiscal year 2018 which have passed the House as part of a consolidated appropriations bill while the Senate version is still awaiting subcommittee markup.

This report discusses the review process of national monuments established or expanded since 1996 that exceed 100,000 acres that was mandated by President Trump's executive order on April 26, 2017, and its results. The final report from the Interior Department was submitted to the President on August 24, 2017, and made individual recommendations for 10 of the 27 monuments that were reviewed.

This report discusses a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation that estimates that 40.3 million people worldwide were victims of modern slavery (including forced labor run by individuals and governments, forced marriages, and sex trafficking) which used a new methodology that combined multiple data sources and statistical probability calculations. A brief overview of the findings, past reports and variance between State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP reports and other reports such as this one, and varying definitions of the terms modern slavery, human trafficking, and forced labor are discussed. Current bills to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in Congress are also discussed.

This report discusses the European Union's reaction to President Trump's announcement of a new strategy for Iran and that the U.S. would not re-certify Iran under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) which is separate from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) made in 2015. The European Union has expressed dismay with the announcement and urged support for the continued implementation of the JCPOA.

This report answers common questions that have arisen as drug overdose deaths in the United States continue to increase. It does not provide a comprehensive overview of opioid abuse as a public health or criminal justice issue. The report is divided into the following sections: Overview of Opioid Abuse; Overview of Opioid Supply; Select Federal Agencies and Programs that Address Opioid Abuse; Recent Legislation; and Opioid Abuse and State Policies.

This report discusses the ongoing political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro and U.S. responses to it. It provides an overview of the political, economic, and social challenges Venezuela faces and analyzes U.S. policy concerns and actions regarding democracy and human rights, drug trafficking and money laundering, terrorism, and energy issues in Venezuela. The section on democracy and human rights includes U.S. support for OAS efforts regarding Venezuela. Proposals in the 115th Congress regarding Venezuela are also discussed.

This report discusses workers' compensation programs including common elements and their history. Non-compulsory programs in Texas and Oklahoma are also discussed including the recent ruling that the system in Oklahoma violated their state constitution.

This report discusses the country of Georgia's parliamentary elections, which domestic and international observers assessed as democratic, despite isolated violations and violent incidents.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether an appointing member city's governing body may remove a director it has appointed to the North Texas Municipal Water District (RQ-0106-KP).

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From Introduction: "This report begins with a brief overview of the estimated budgetary impact of the House and Senate farm bills, followed by a summary comparison of the major provisions of each title. A side-by-side section comprehensively compares all of the provisions in S. 954 as passed by the Senate (now also referred to as the Senate amendment of H.R. 2642) and the latest House-passed version of H.R. 2642 (which includes the provisions of H.R. 3102 as a new Title IV to H.R. 2642) with each other, and with current law or policy."

The Northwest Power Pool (NWPP) Market Assessment Committee (MC) Initiative, which was officially launched on March 19, 2012, set out to explore a range of alternatives that could help the Balancing Authorities and scheduling utilities in the NWPP area address growing operational and commercial challenges affecting the regional power system. The MC formed an Analytical Team with technical representatives from each of the member Balancing Areas in the NWPP and with staff of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). This Analytical Team was instructed to conduct extensive studies of intra-hour operation of the NWPP system in the year 2020 and of the NWPP region with 14,671 MW of wind penetration. The effort utilized a sub-hourly production cost model (the PLEXOS® computer model) that inputs data from the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)-wide Production Cost Model (PCM) to evaluate potential production cost savings. The Analytical Team was given two general options to evaluate: •Energy Imbalance Market (EIM): establishment of an automated, organized NWPP area market for economically supplying energy imbalance within the hour. •Enhanced Market-Operational Tools (EMT) that might augment or replace an EIM. The Analytical The Analytical Team built on the WECC-wide PCM data from prior work done in the WECC …

This report summarizes congressional authorization and appropriations processes for the Corps. It also discusses agency activities under general authorities. Congress directs the Corps through authorizations, appropriations, and oversight of its studies, construction projects, and other activities.

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ATLAS and the LHC are delivering on the promise of discovery physics at the high energy frontier. Using 4.8 fb^-1 of 2011 √s=7 TeV data and the first 5.8 fb?1 of 2012 √s=8 TeV data, ATLAS published the observation of a new particle with a mass of 126 GeV with a significance of 5.9σ that is compatible with a Standard Model (SM) Higgs. The LHC is outperforming intial projections for the 2012 run, and ATLAS is on track to integrate ~20 fb^(-1) of proton-proton collisions in 2012 before Long Shutdown 1 (LS1) begins in Spring 2013. University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) physicists will complete work on two ATLAS analyses this fall. The first is the search for the gauge bosons of a hypothesized dark sector. For 2011 data, UTD is responsible for the ?dark photon?search in the electron-jet channel, and we are looking forward to an expanded leadership role in the dark photon search using the full 2012 data set. Our second analysis interest is the study of X/Y/Z exotic states having cc ̅ content, which builds on our experience in this field from the BABAR experiment After completing a measurement of the Xc(3872) production cross section this fall, …

This report discusses the reports on improper payments and recovery audits that were first issued for FY2004 and the efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate billions of dollars in improper payments made by federal agencies each fiscal year, Congress passed the Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA; P.L. 107-300; 116 Stat. 2350) in 2002.

This report begins with a working definition of the mental health workforce and a brief discussion of alternative definitions. It then describes three dimensions of the mental health workforce that may influence quality of care, access to care, and costs of care: (1) licensure requirements and scope of practice for each provider type in the mental health workforce, (2) estimated numbers of each provider type in the mental health workforce, and (3) average annual wages for each provider type in the mental health workforce. The report then briefly discusses how these dimensions of the mental health workforce might inform certain policy discussions.

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